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Hope Forward: Surviving and Thriving through Emotional Pain: Different Directions

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Different Directions


A friend of mine called me from a road trip yesterday to tell me the following story:


She was visiting a friend in San Francisco, a long awaited for, saved up for and precisely planned vacation. She is single, on a tight budget and not used to traveling, but after dreaming about such a vaca for so long, and listening to her friend's nagging about coming west, she decided to challenge herself by just doing it. My friend declared victory over her fears of traveling alone and hopped on a plane and flew toward the Pacific.
She based herself at her old college roommate's sunny apartment near the bay, where she could smell the sea air and watch the fog lift around mid morning. She let herself ramble around, jump on cable cars, buy Ghiradelli chocolate and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge.
On the day she called me, she was driving up highway 1 along the coast feeling like she had just discovered a new moon. She was elated. Not, however, just because she was flying up the coast line like the road runner watching miles and miles of ocean and then stopping every now and then to just sit on an occasional rock and stare out at the sea til her eyes hurt, but because of this:

She had intended to head south first thing that morning from San Francisco, out of the city toward 101 South, to meet up with a scheduled tour at the Hearst Castle. She had always wanted to check this place out, and the tour was to be the grand finale to her week of fun. She got up early, situated herself in her red Ford Taurus rental car and headed out.

She drove out of the neighborhood, through the city streets just as the city was waking up and stretching out after a long night's sleep. Unlike New York, San Francisco sleeps. She headed through Golden Gate Park, amazed at the foggy mist all over the trees, distracted by all the white washed buildings, low lying and calm. A mindful city, she was thinking. She drove happily over the Golden Gate Bridge, through the tunnel into the jagged hills of Sausilto, looking back at the thick fog over the city behind her in her rear view mirror. Gorgeous. So different, so far away from her rushed life, her boyfriend troubles. The constant chattering of her own mind, the reviewing her failures. Her frustrations and shortcomings had conceded to the vastness of the San Francisco bay and its loveliness. Even her loneliness had lifted out here. Her extra 20 pounds didn't seem so awful, just something to deal with maybe, some day. By some miracle, the food was not calling her the way it usually did. Even if there is no such thing as a geographic cure for her eating disorder, she told me, she did feel like she was on some kind of temporary leave of agony from all her struggles.

As she was driving, she was watching the signs for Tiburon, San Rafael, Novoto. The scraggly cliffs gave way to rolling hills, she noted the occasional cow and a fogless blue sky bright with early morning California sunshine. Petaluma, Sonoma, Santa Rosa. Hmm. She kept driving. Its the age of GPS, but she did not have one. She had her map, her guide book and her printed google directions. She was almost sorry she had her cell phone. An electronics protest rumbled somewhere inside her and it felt good.

About an hour and a half into the drive, like the sun coming up, she tells me, a slow and growing smile started across her face. The signs that said 101, telling her she was on the right highway, were also trying to tell her something else. She was going north. Very north. Delightfully, steadily and definitely 70 miles in the wrong direction.

With a head scratch, she pulled off at the next exit to grab a coke and a muffin at a pretty little gas station somewhere off the highway. The kid behind the counter said "How you doing today?" To which she replied, "Well, I just drove 70 miles in the wrong direction" To which he smiled lightly, shrugged and said, "Well, guess you can just turn around now and go the other way then." To which she said, feeling just as light, "Yep."

So this was the victory she was calling to tell me about, some 12 hours later. That she missed the tour at the Hearst Castle, that she had driven 70 miles out of her way, that the one thing she had really wanted to do, she did not get to do. But she felt better than she could ever remember. That those 70 miles up through Marin County would stay with her forever, so would that boy behind the counter with his smile and his shrug. It did not get filtered through her usual screen of self attack, sarcasm or despair. Although she had long been working on allowing herself all of her feelings, even, especially, the negative ones, the uncomfortable ones, the outright painful ones, knowing they pass, knowing they too are allowed to live and she can survive them....she did not experience them that morning. No pangs of regret, or anger. No frustration, stupidity, or self name calling. None of the old sneering at the idiot behind the counter or the one in the mirror.

Just immediate, radical acceptance, and then the idea that yes, really, she could just turn around and go the other way.

8 comments:

Sara said...

What a lovely writer you are - you tell that story in such a moving way. I had tears in my eyes at the end. Thanks!

Em

Shen said...

Oh my, I love this post.
I would do that!
I am leaving on vacation tomorrow and I have been kind of dreading it... I know, it's not how it's supposed to be. I don't have to go. Things in therapy have been coming up, lately and it's been really hard to imagine being out of touch for 9 days.

But I see this is a matter of perception. I can look at it like a separation, or I can look at it as an adventure. I will be free of email and phone interuptions and alarm clocks...

Thank you for this - it was meant for me today.

Melissa Groman, LCSW said...

Hi Emma,
Thank you....I am so glad to have your kind words!
Melissa

Melissa Groman, LCSW said...

Hi Shen
Glad my timing was so good! Thanks as always for stopping by!
Melissa

Solid Rock or Sinking Sand said...

What a God sent blog Melissa. There are so many hurting folks our there that needs to read some of the posts on your blog. God bless, Lloyd

Shen said...

I just thought I'd let you know... my trip was as unexpectedly freeing and awesome as your client's.

Life is good.

Melissa Groman, LCSW said...

Shen,

I am so glad you let me know!
My friend's experience was unexpected as well! there can be much freedom in that indeed!

Melissa

Melissa Groman, LCSW said...

Thanks Lloyd!
Your comment is much appreciated!
Melissa